Celebrity Suicides

While it was never officially proven he committed suicide, Smith died from a stab wound to the chest, and friends said he had been dealing with drugs, alcohol and depression at the time of his death in October 2003. He was 34.

Kenny McKinley

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Denver Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley was found dead in his apartment September 20, 2010. The Broncos released a statement from coach Josh McDaniels, who described McKinley’s death as “a tragic loss.”

Erica Blasberg

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Pro golfer Erica Blasberg reads the green before putting for eagle on the third hole during the third round of the LPGA Corning Classic at Corning Country Club on May 24, 2008. Blasberg, 25, was found dead May 9, 2010 with a plastic bag over her head. Toxicology reports also said Blasberg has consumed a lethal amount of headache, cough, pain and anti-anxiety meds.

David Strickland

(credit: AP)

David Strickland, a native of Long Island, New York who got the acting bug while he was a high school student living in Pacific Palisades, was in his third season in 1999 playing Todd, the music critic, on the amiable sitcom “Suddenly Susan.” Moreover, that year he had a co-starring role in the Ben Affleck-Sandra Bullock movie “Forces of Nature.” When most of his movie role hit the cutting room floor, Strickland, who was bi-polar, became despondent said friends. He went to Las Vegas shortly after the movie premiered, drank heavily, and hanged himself using hotel bed sheets. He was six months shy of turning 30.

Ruslana Korshunova

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She was hailed in British Vogue in 2005 as “a face to be excited about.” Russian model Ruslana Korshunova, for reasons still unclear to her friends, decided to end her life at the age of 20 on June 28, 2008. Korshunova, often a cover girl for European Vogue, was said to be on top of the world from a recent modeling assignment. She plunged to her death from the balcony of her ninth floor NYC apartment. Her suicide recalls that of male model Spencer Garbett who shot and killed himself inside his Brentwood home in 1997 at the age of 27, a month shy of his Christmas birthday. He was a six-time Star Search male spokesmodel contestant, sometime actor, International Male, Undergear model (his pictures still run in the catalogs), Versace model and a “Road Warrior” correspondent on Fox’s “Breakfast Time.” More than a decade later his friends and family still have no idea why he killed himself.

Rob Pilatus

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Rob Pilatus, left, was one half of the superstar music group Milli Vanilli, alongside bandmate Fab Morvan. The duo (often shirtless and photographed their long tresses blowing in the wind) released a slew of hits in the late 80s and early 90s (“Blame it on the Rain” and “Girl You Know It’s True”) and even won the Grammy for best new artists…but scandal hit when it was revealed the gorgeous boys were just fronting and lip synching to other artists. The Grammy was revoked, the boys became a joke. Pilatus never lived down the scandal and had major bouts of depression for years following. He tried to commit suicide in 1991. After a failed comeback, Pilatus got heavily involved in drugs and even served time for robbery. In 1998, a then 32-year-old Pilatus was found dead in a German hotel having overdosed on booze and pills. Fab, meanwhile, has enjoyed some success as a solo artist.

Wendy Orlean Williams

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Born Wendy Orlean Williams in May 1949, punk rocker Wendy O. Williams, had a penchant for shocking her audience. While music and fronting the band the Plasmatics was important to the Grammy-nominated Williams, making a statement was also high on her list of priorities. She would think nothing of smashing expensive equipment, TV’s, cars…you name it, on stage. Williams shot herself, near her house in woods she liked to stroll, one month shy of her 49th birthday. In part, her suicide note read: “I don’t believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time.”

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Dipendra of Nepal

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Members of royalty rarely ever commit suicide let alone murder. But Dipendra of Nepal — official name Dipendra Bir Bikram Sha Dev who was born June 1971 — was unlike most leaders. A few weeks short of his 30th birthday in June 2001, Dipendra was said to have killed members of his own family during a royal dinner party before turning the gun on himself. The motive? Dipendra was allegedly told by his mother that he could not marry the woman he wanted. That’s when reports say he got drunk and killed his father, the king, as well as his mother, brother and sister. He lingered in a coma for three days, at which time he was briefly the king. He was succeeded upon death by his uncle.

Najai Turpin

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Najai Turpin, 23, was a popular first season contestant on NBC’s “The Contender” especially endearing the audience with his hard-scrabble story of making it from the tough streets of Philadelphia. The producers, among them Sly Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard, were also fond of the future star boxer and even served as pall bearers at Turpin’s funeral. After a fight with his girlfriend over custody of their 2-year-old daughter, the boxer turned a gun on himself on the early morning of February 14 (Valentine’s Day) 2005.

Edwin Valero

(credit: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)

World Boxing Council (WBC) World Champion of the Lightweight division Edwin Valero, of Venezuela, celebrates after winning against interim champion Mexican Antonio DeMarco on Feb. 6, 2010, in Monterrey, Mexico. After being arrested April 17, 2010 on suspicion of killing his wife in Venezuela, Valero, then 28, committed suicide in his jail cell, reportedly by cutting up his clothes and fashioning a noose around his neck.

Virginia Woolf

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Anyone who saw the movie “The Hours” (another role played by Nicole Kidman) cannot get the image of writer and novelist Virginia Woolf (born in 1882) taking her own life. Woolf packed her coat pocket with huge rocks and calmly strode into the River Ouse. Woolf had many nervous breakdowns in her life and her sadness was palpable in all her writings. Rather than “going mad again,” she wrote her husband “I cannot go through another of those terrible times…so I am doing what seems the best thing to do.”

Sid Vicious

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London-born John Simon Ritchie, better known as Sid Vicious, was a punk music superstar and one-time band member of Siouxsie & the Banshees, but it was as bass player of the Sex Pistols where he became a household name. Fame was as fleeting as his life was. Vicious — an alcohol abuser and drug addict — killed himself at the age of 21. In 1978, he was arrested for the murder of girlfriend Nancy Spungen and Vicious said until the day he died, he could not remember killing her. 10 days after her murder, he attempted suicide. A year later, clean of heroin, he apparently overdosed on heroin and apparently died when his own fluids filled his lungs.

John Francis Spence

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The band No Doubt was just getting started and about to emerge when John Francis Spence, lead vocalist, decided to end it all. The group even took its name from John’s favorite expression. Gwen Stefani, then doing background vocals, was pushed to the front of the group and the band was solidified as a pop sensation. Spence killed himself in 1987, at the age of 18, by shooting himself with a gun at a park in Anaheim. The band was going to break-up but they ultimately decided John would have wanted them to stay together. The rest, they say, is history.

Margaux Hemingway

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Margaux Hemingway (born 1954) was the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, the acclaimed writer. Margaux, in her own right, became a succesful model (a $1 million contract with Faberge) and later an actress. Her face graced just about every magazine known to man, but she was never comfortable with her celebrity. Failed marriages, and heavy drinking, wrapped around bouts of failed sobriety took her off the map by the mid 90s. Sister Mariel, meanwhile, was soaring. Like her grandfather before her (and three other Hemingways), Margaux Hemingway decided to take her own life and in 1996, she overdosed on pills and was found dead in her studio apartment in Santa Monica. Mariel always maintained the death was an accident — despite the fact that Margaux’s death and Ernest’s death occured on the same day, July 2.

Phyllis Hyman

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Look up “sultry” in the dictionary and, if the dictionary is any good, there should be a picture of R&B singer Phyllis Hyman there. A Philadelphia native, Hyman (born 1949) won a legion of fans with her deep, sexy voice and jazzy stylings in the late 70s. By the 80′s, the 6’2″ former model took her soul to Broadway and starred in the musical “Sophisticated Ladies”, garnering a Tony nomination. She got into a contractual battle with Arista records in the mid 80s which put her career on a down turn. By the early 90s, she was dealing with alcohol abuse, weight gain, depression over the deaths of her mother and grandmother within one month of each other. In 1995, she took an overdose of sleeping pills leaving her fans to mourn an artist still at the apex.

Ed Flanders

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Ed Flanders, a “St. Elsewhere” star, played the smart and kind-hearted Dr. Westphall on the acclaimed NBC dramedy. And Flanders (born in 1934) was one of the show’s most decorated actors: an Emmy for “St. Elsewhere”, a Tony for Broadway’s “A Moon For the Misbegotten” and another Emmy for the TV version of the play, and another Emmy for playing president Harry S. Truman. His family said he was suffering from depression for years. He ended his life on February 22, 1995 in Denny, California.

Michael Hutchence

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More than ten years after his death, his fans still don’t believe INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence killed himself. Hutchence was found dead in his Doule Bay, Sydney Ritz-Carlton hotel room on November 22, 1997. There was no suicide note, and Hutchence was naked, save for a belt around his neck. His friends, family and fans prefer to believe Hutchence died, accidentally, while perfoming auto-erotic asphyxiation — or stangling yourself to the point of unconciousness during a self-performed sex act. (Do not try this at home.)

Richard Jeni

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Brooklyn-born Richard John Colangelo became popular as stand-up Richard Jeni. In 2004, Comedy Central, in fact, ranked him #57 in the 100 Best Stand-Ups Of All-Time. Three years later, battling depression, Jeni shot himself in his West Hollywood apartment. Jeni was just one month shy of his 50th birthday. Imdb.com quotes one of the comic’s best lines: “My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son of a bitch.”

Alan Ladd

(credit: Paramount Pictures)

Born in 1913, the Arkansas-born Alan Ladd was a small, shy kid who ultimately burned his apartment down by playing with matches. Hardly the start of a Hollywood, leading man matinee idol. But by the 1953 classic western “Shane,” Ladd solidified his place as a major movie star and tough guy even though he stood only 5’5″. Heavy drinking and lousy roles helped him fade from the scene. In 1962, he was found unconcious lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart. That suicide attempt failed but by 1964 he succeeded with a combination of booze and sleeping pills. His mom had killed herself by ingesting ant poison.

Daul Kim

(Photo credit should read FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images)

Supermodel Daul Kim was found hanged in her Paris apartment November 18, 2009. She had gone on the Internet days before she was found dead complaining of working too hard and being lonely and depressed. Kim was 20. Male models are not immune to suicide either. In June 2010, Tom Nicon, 22, killed himself after reportedly becoming depressed over a break-up with a girlfriend. In April 22, 2010, another male model, Ambrose Olsen, 24, hanged himself for unknown reasons. That same day, in Colombia, supermodel Lina Marulanda jumped from the sixth-floor of her apartment.

Hunter S. Thompson

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The king of the so-called Gonzo journalists, Hunter Thompson saw it all, and did it all. A couple of times. Known for hard-drinking and even harder writing, Thompson’s best-known work was probably “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Other works including “Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail ’72″ in which he famously asked about Nixon, “How low do you have to stoop in this country to become president?” and Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential victory “Better Than Sex.” He shot himself in the head, at home in Colorado, in 2005 at the age of 67.

Ernest Hemingway

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Papa was a rolling stone, and wherever he laid his hat was his home. It was a song lyric, but it could have been about the prolific and well-traveled Hemingway, born in 1899. The acclaimed writer (he won a Nobel) penned epic stories of life (“To Have and Have Not”), tragic love (“A Farewell To Arms”) and pain (“For Whom The Bell Tolls”) and adventure (“The Old Man and the Sea”, “The Sun Also Rises”). He never forgave his mother for dressing him as a girl in his youth although his drinking, he said at one point, helped him forget all his painful childhood memories. And he did a lot of drinking. Depressed and given electric shock therapy for months, Hemingway committed suicide in 1961, with his favorite shotgun, at home in Idaho.

Brian Keith

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Bayonne, N.J., native Brian Keith (born 1921) was an actor who became a household name for starring in the 1960s sitcom “Family Affair.” He committed suicide June 1997 in his Malibu house after being diagnosed with emphysema and terminal lung cancer, and two months after his 27-year-old daughter Daisy took her own life.

Sigmund Freud

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The founder of modern psychoanalyis, Sigmund Freud had a major influence on literature, social thinking, psychiatrity and art. Freud gave us the id, the ego, the superego, dream interpretation, and Oedipus complex and mommy issues and the list goes on, including cocaine which he was a major advocate for. What he didn’t give us was “physician heal thyself.” A heavy smoker suffering from oral cancer, he had a close friend give him a lethal dose of morphine to end his suffering at the age of 83 in 1939.

Peg Entwistle

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Welsh-born Peg Entwistle came to Hollywood to make a name for herself. That was the plan. Born in 1908, Peg made it to Hollywood and the silver screen by 1932. So far, so good. She won a part as Hazel in 1932′s “Thirteen Women.” Thirteen didn’t prove to be a lucky number for Entwistle. In September 1932, depressed, she went up to the Hollywood sign and did a swan dive, supposedly off the H. It was her swan song, too. Entwistle did one movie and died at 24 and is forever known as “The Hollywood Sign Girl”…she made a name for herself, indeed. Just not the way she would have hoped.

Gig Young

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Oscar-winning actor Gig Young (“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”) was married to five different actresses, most notably actress Elizabeth Montgomery from 1956-1963. A previous wife died of cancer a year into their marriage. It was then, supposedly, Young developed a drinking problem that thwarted his career. He bounced back to win the Oscar, for the aforementioned “They Shoot…” in 1969 but he thought winning was the kiss of death. In October 1978, the then 65-year old Young, shot and killed his 21-year-old German actress wife (of three weeks) Kim Schmidt and then turned the gun on himself in his New York City apartment. Police found his Oscar next to both bodies.

George Reeves

(credit: AP)

George Reeves (born George Keefer Brewer) brought the comic book hero to life in the 1950s TV series “Superman.” Reeves’ fans insist he never killed himself on June 16, 1959 but that he was murdered (by the husband of a romantic rival) and that his murder was made to look like a suicide. “Hollywoodland”, a 2006 well-received movie starring Ben Affleck as Reeves lays out just such a scenario. Fans of the suicide theory believe the Pasadena-raised Reeves was despondent over being typecast as the TV superhero and that he simply shot himself, while naked, one night in his Hollywood home while friends played cards and partied downstairs.

Sylvia Plath

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Sylvia Plath (born in 1932) was one of those rare authors who remain as popular in life as she does in death, maybe more so in death. Her haunting poetry and writings (“The Bell Jar”) have won her a legion of ardent fans, evident from the many fan sites she has on the web. Plath put her head in the oven and turned on the gas in Feb. 1963. Her son, Nicholas, killed himself at his home in Fairbanks, Alaska in March 2009 at the age of 47. Plath’s then-husband Ted Hughes married for a second time. His second wife, Assia Wevill, killed herself and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter in March 1969.

Del Shannon

(credit: Del Shannon.com)

Called one of the links between Elvis and the Beatles, singer Del Shannon (born Charles Weedon Westover in 1934) had the runaway 1961 hit “Runaway.” Shannon had a score of other top 100 hits but only a handful ever cracked the top ten. He committed suicide at the age of 55 in his Santa Clarita home by shooting himself in the head with a .22 caliber rifle. His wife blamed Prozac for his mental state at the time of his suicide.

Kurt Cobain

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Co-founder of the seminal rock band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994 has his fans still reeling. Cobain was the group’s singer, guitarist and songwriter and his dark music should have been a clue at the depression that laid beneath. While his death is still debated and analyzed, Cobain, just 27, killed himself with a self-inflicted shotgun blast on April 5, 1994. He was found three days later. He left behind rocker wife Courtney Love and their daughter Frances Bean.

Frankie Lymon

Frankie Lymon, center, was the lead singer of the popular doo wop group The Teenagers. The group’s first single, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” was an instant smash in 1956. Lymon — America’s first bonafide black teen idol — left the group about a year later with promises of solo stardom. What Lymon quickly found was himself involved with a series of women who, years later, all claimed to be his wife. His signature falsetto was silenced in 1968 when Lymon died of a heroin overdose. He was 25.

Herve Villechaize

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Herve Villechaize was Tattoo on the hit ABC series “Fantasy Island” (1978-83) known for the signature line “Da plane, da plane!” After being fired from the show (he asked for more money and the producers said no), the 3’11″ Villechaize started drinking and became depressed. At the age of 50, in 1993, he shot and killed himself in the backyard of his North Hollywood home.

Dave Garroway

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Dave Garroway was the “Today” show’s original host. And he was an original. Born in 1913, the avuncular and amiable host (from 1952-1961) was known for being relaxed and ever calm. His signature goodbye was “Peace.” His downward spiral began in 1961 when his wife committed suicide. After leaving the Today program, Garroway didn’t find much peace in TV. He shot himself at his Philadelphia home in 1982.

Charles Rocket

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Charles Rocket was considered a gifted comedian and smart actor when he joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1980. In a 1981 sketch he uttered the F word and was subsequently fired. While it took his career a few years to catch fire again, he did make appearances in “Dumb & Dumber” and “Dances With Wolves.” Having turned 56 two months prior, Rocket was found dead, his throat slashed, in a field near his house in Connecticut in 2005.

Ray Combs

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Comedian Ray Combs (born April 3, 1956) hosted “Family Feud” 1988-1994. While his show never enjoyed the popularity of Richard Dawson’s version, Combs was considered a success and got a lot of work on the stand-up circuit. When “Feud” went off the air, Combs was involved in a horrific car crash, had a business dispute with a partner, separated from his wife and six kids and had trouble getting more TV work. After one failed suicide attempt, Combs succeeded by hanging himself with bed sheets while staying at a psychiatric hospital in 1996.

Chris Benoit

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Chris Benoit killed himself June 24, 2007 after murdering his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel. Here he poses with his World Wrestling Entertainment championship belt March 29, 2004. Heavy steroid use and brain damage was blamed for Benoit’s mental state. Known as “the Crippler”, Benoit killed himself a month before he was to turn 40.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey

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Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who allegedly ran an upscale escort service, reads a statement outside federal court after her arraignment on federal racketeering charges March 9, 2007. Palfrey, born March 18, 1956, reportedly feared a long jail sentence and hanged herself May 1, 2008. Her suicide notes were released by police on May 5, 2008. In them, she told her sister to take care of their mother. And, to her mom, she wrote “I cannot live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what both you and I have come to regard as this ‘modern day lynching’ only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman.”

Freddie Prinz

(credit: Warner Bros. Television)

Stand-up comic Freddie Prinze, left, star of NBC’s hit “Chico And The Man,” (with co-star Jack Albertson) committed suicide on Jan. 29, 1977, at the age of 22. Heavy quaalude use was blamed for his depression. Prinze is the father of actor Freddie Prinze, Jr.

John Costelloe

(credit: HBO Home Video)

47-year-old actor John Costelloe (right) played hunky short order cook Jim “Johnny Cakes” Witowski — the unrequited love of a closeted mobster — on four episodes of “The Sopranos” in 2006. Costelloe reportedly shot himself in the head in his Brooklyn home December 18, 2008. He also appeared in many movies, most recently “Doubt” where he played Warren Hurley.

Lucy Gordon

(credit: AP)

British actress Lucy Gordon, who played reporter Jennifer Dugan in “Spider-Man 3″, was found dead May 21, 2009, in her Paris apartment. She would have turned 29 the following day. The actress apparently committed suicide, according to Paris police headquarters. Gordon appeared in a dozen movies including “Frost,” “Serial” and “Serendipity.” She also plays Jane Birkin in the the biopic of British singer and actor Serge Gainsbourg.

Alexander McQueen

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Fashion designer Alexander McQueen walks down the catwalk after his Ready-to-Wear A/W 2009 fashion show during Paris Fashion Week at POPB on March 10, 2009 in Paris. McQueen, allegedly despondent over the death of his mother, hanged himself in his London home February 2010.

Ben Hendrickson

A daytime Emmy winner for his role as good-guy cop Hal Munson, actor Benjamin Hendrickson was beloved by co-stars and fans alike. Born in 1950, Hendrickson played Munson with an aw-shucks likability that was both endearing and disarming. Hendrickson, David Bowie’s understudy during the Broadway run of “The Elephant Man”, sunk into a deep depression when his mom died in 2003. Playing scenes where his daughter was dying three years later might have proven too much for him to bear. On July 1, 2006, he shot himself in the head at his Long Island home one month shy of his 56th birthday.

Christine Chubbuck

Reporters are supposed to cover the news, not make news. But TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck, 29, made international news when she committed suicide on live television. She had talked to her family many times about a failed suicide attempt in 1970 but they feared that telling her bosses she was suicidal would almost surely mean Chubbuck would be fired. Her mother later told reporters Chubbuck was depressed over her social life. She confided in colleagues that she was still a virgin and her 30th birthday was approaching. Chubbuck was hosting her public affairs program, “Suncoast Digest,” on WXLT-TV, Sarasota, Fla., July 15, 1974 — about 5 weeks before her birthday — when she pulled out a .38 caliber gun, placed it behind her right ear and pulled the trigger.

James Whale

James Whale’s life was depicted in the acclaimed 1998 film “Gods and Monsters.” The England-born Whale became synonymous with horror films of the 30s and 40s, most notably the Boris Karloff classic “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein.” Whale, born in 1889, was Hollywood’s first openly gay director and he liked to inject his films with subtle dashes of humor. He was notoriously scared to death of water…and perhaps it was foreshadowing. He committed suicide by drowning himself in the pool at his Hollywood home in 1957. His suicide note read, in part, “I must have peace…and this is the only way.”

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus, a noted American photographer born in 1923, came to fame and prominence for shooting people most charitably described as down and out. Arbus loved outsiders and while she was born to wealth, she seemed to be most at home hanging around the seedy, the needy and the disenfranchised: circus folks, hookers, bums, little people, transvestites…if they had a label, she photographed them. Nicole Kidman played Arbus in a 2006 film, “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.” Arbus committed suicide in her Greenwich Village apartment in 1971 with an overdose of sleeping pills. She also cut her wrists for good measure.

Dorothy Dandridge

Actress Dorothy Dandridge, like her friend Marilyn Monroe, wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. Also like Marilyn, her personal life was marked by tragedy, dead-end affairs, career stalls and sad events; including giving birth to a daughter who had to be institutionalized. Dandridge died of a drug overdose in September 1965, at age 42. Her death, from an overdose of an anti-depressant, was later ruled accidental…also like her friend Marilyn’s. But, unlike Marilyn’s death, there was never speculation that the Oscar-nominated Dandridge might have been murdered.

Donnie Moore

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Baseball pitcher Donnie Moore shot and killed himself July 1989 after shooting and critically injuring his wife during a domestic fight. Moore, 35, three years earlier allowed a home run while pitching for the Angels that allowed the Red Sox to eventually win the series from them denying his team a World Series bid. It’s been debated for years whether that home run ball “haunted” Moore and caused his demons, but Moore’s suicide, sadly, is not uncommon among professional athletes who have trouble when the limelight goes out.